"Trixie!"
Starlight Glimmer's voice echoed through the unlit space. The mare she sought, as was becoming typical, was nowhere to be seen. With a sigh, Starlight walked down the aisle between rows of seating. Ponyville Theatre, previously having hosted such prestigious shows such as 'A View From Canterlot', 'Le Miserétalons', and 'A Streetcar Named Ditzy', was in somewhat of a slump. Slow season, for lack of a better term. It was early summer, and nopony wanted to sit watching a show indoors. Especially when the ambience of the local outdoor amphitheatre made for such a pleasant experience. It was because of this that Starlight had managed to negotiate a nominal fee for renting the theatre for a few weeks.
And, to Trixie's credit, her name plastered across the façade of the building had drawn a crowd. Though, Starlight had to admit, it was likely down to infamy. For the last two and a half weeks, the theatre had done very well despite the time of year. Each night, Trixie's shows had been performed to an audience that matched and often surpassed the numbers from her travelling days. They'd accrued a reasonable profit from the proceedings, and the theatre was filling far more seats than their average for the season.
It turned out to be a deal that benefitted both parties, and Starlight's job as a mediator was relatively straightforward. Plus it was a few extra bits for some evening hours after the school day had ended, and that suited her just fine. However, as time went on, she was finding herself more and more occupied with filling out paperwork from their insurance company. That, she was less fine with.
As she walked up the side stairs leading from the seating area onto the main stage, Starlight found herself tapping her hooves impatiently. Where was Trixie? She paused her repetitive hoof taps when her ears flicked. There was another sound, reverberating in the air, coming from somewhere backstage. A gentle, regular series of gargling rasps and occasional snorts.
"Oh for the love of..." she groaned.
Her tail flicked with agitation as she stomped towards the curtains. She passed between them, grumbling to herself in Griffonian slurs that she'd overheard from Gallus. Yes, he'd recieved detention when Starlight had found a Griffonian to Equestrian dictionary, but it was out of school hours now. She could say them, it didn't count. At least, that's how she rationalised it to herself. 'Do as I say, not as I do' she justified, when the bell would ring to signal the end of the school day. Only after teaching hours had ended, could she have a swig from her flask of Seaquestrian Spiced Rum.
The curtains parted moments later in a sparkling glow of turquoise aura, as Starlight emerged. Also held in the grasp of her magic, was a sofa. A chaise longue, specifically, one that Rarity particularly enjoyed fainting onto during fits of melodrama. Its current occupant was snoring loudly, cocooned by using her cloak like a sleeping bag. Her hat was sat resting down low over her eyes, to keep the light out. Well, what little light there was from the basic firefly lanterns marking the edge of the stage. A fire safety requirement, Starlight knew, as she was so familiar with fire regulations. She had to be, with so many students in her care at the school.
With all the care and grace of a buffalo mounting a unicycle, Starlight tipped the chaise longue upwards and deposited its sleeping passenger onto the stage. Trixie yelped and squealed as she rolled face first onto the wooden floor, but quickly recovered. She shot to her hooves, looking around for her assailant. But she appeared to be unaware of the fact her hat had taken hold of her muzzle and stuck itself hard into place, completely obscuring her vision.
"Reveal yourself, coward!" she shouted, her voice muffled by the fabric of her hat. "Nopony disturbs The Great and Powerful Trixie and walks away unscathed! Emerge from the darkness and face me in a duel, show some common courtesy!"
As she sat on her haunches to watch Trixie make a fool of herself, Starlight started to silently berate herself for not bringing her flask with her. Her students often drove her to the good stuff at the end of a hard day, but somehow they were often easier to deal with than Trixie. And more often than not, more mature. She was almost finished with her bottle of rum, and she started to imagine herself unsealing the new bottle of pearlescent Crystal Gin that she'd received from Cadance as a birthday present.
It was at this point that she saw a flash of light from under Trixie's hat. A squeak of surprise accompanied it, and it appeared that Trixie's attempt to cast an illumination spell had shown her exactly why it was so dark.
In an unconvincing attempt to do so with dignity, Trixie reached up, pulled her hat away from her muzzle, and rested it back into place atop her head. She adjusted it, making sure her horn was comfortable, and cleared her throat.
"Oh, hello Starlight," Trixie said. "The Great and Powerful Trixie was just waiting for you to finally turn up."
"And a good evening to you too, Trixie. Nice nap, was it?"
"Nap? What an outrageous accusation! Trixie was simply entering a meditative state to prepare herself for the show tonight."
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Meditation?"
"Yes," Trixie replied shortly, her cheeks flushed.
"Last time it was a 'careful examination' of the inside of your eyelids."
"The squiggles were out of alignment!"
"And before that, you were shielding yourself from the light... of which there wasn't any... while painkillers kicked in."
"The Great and Powerful Trixie is highly susceptible to migraines, but she soldiers on regardless!"
"And the time before that, it was..."
"Okay fine," Trixie cut in, stomping her hoof. "You have made your point, Starlight Glimmer. Shall we put the matter of Trixie's meditation behind us and proceed with her show preparations?"
"Alrighty then," Starlight said, levitating a parchment and quill. "To start off, Trixie, let's talk through the running order so we can co-ordinate the lighting cues for tonight."
"If we must, then," came a drawling reply. "Trixie desires to initiate proceedings with The Presto-Pyjama Escape."
"Okay, got it. What's next?"
"The Bunny Hop Surprise."
Starlight frowned and raised an eyebrow, but wrote it down. "Then?"
"The Conjured Confetti."
"Okay... and then?"
"The Teleporting Teapot Tumble."
"Uhh..." Starlight bit her lip as her ears drooped. "Are you sure about that? After last time?"
Trixie frowned. "And what is it you wish to imply with that question?"
"Seriously? You don't remember that stallion getting first degree burns?"
"Pish posh! He volunteered to assist, he knew what he signed up for."
"You dragged him up onto the stage and wouldn't take no for an answer."
With a flourish of her cloak, which sent glitter flying everywhere, Trixie threw her hooves up in a display of melodrama that would have earned her a standing ovation in most dramatic circles. "Fine, then," she admitted in defeat, as her muzzle scrunched up in a sneer. "The Ice Cream Avalanche it is."
"Nope, frostbite."
"The Disco Ball Descent?"
"Retinal damage."
"The Caramel Corn Confuddling?"
"Diabetes."
"The Twisting Tornado of Tulips?"
"Hay fever."
"The Mystic Marionette Mastery?"
"Rope burns."
"The Whimsical Watermelon Waltz?"
"Motion sickness."
"The Buccaneer Blaze?"
"You're not a pegasus."
"The Time Travelling Top Hat?"
"I've warned you three times now about interfering with the space-time continuum."
"The Desk of Endless Echoes?"
"See my previous comment."
"The Vanishing Vegetable Variety?"
"Not with fillies and colts in attendance."
"The Hocus Pocus Hiccups?"
"There is no way I'm going to Quills & Sofas again to buy sixteen futons, we don't have the time or budget."
"Oh, Trixie knows! How about The Spectacular Sock Puppet Spectacle?"
Starlight, briefly lost in the rhythm of shooting down Trixie's ideas, halted with a word halfway up her throat. Her ears perked up again. "Uhh... okay, that one we can do, but I'm still not convinced on the name. 'Spectacular Spectacle' might be a bit much."
"Absurd!" Trixie declared, a hoof racing to rest against her head in over-the-top anguish. "The Great and Powerful Trixie spends more time workshopping the names of her tricks than you spend on any of your administrative tasks at that friendship school!"
"You should spend that time reading ESHA regulations," Starlight murmured to the parchment. She scribbled the absurdly-named trick down.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing! So, we've got Pyjamas, Bunnies, Confetti, Sock Puppets. Do you have anything else in mind, or do you want me to suggest some?"
With a dismissive wave of her hoof, Trixie made her thoughts very clear. "Trixie needs not the suggestions of outsiders."
"Once again, from the lighting booth I can see the whole crowd. It's a really great view of their reactions, which tricks stand out best and which ones we could probably drop. If you just check my notes, you'll see that..."
"The Great and Powerful Trixie has dismissed your input once already, Starlight Glimmer! She is tired of having to do so on a repeated basis. Now, as it so happens, she believes The Banana Split Spectacle to be a fitting follow-up."
"Another spectacle, how original."
"What was that?!"
"Nothing," Starlight said, grinning innocently as she wrote the trick down. "We still have the 'Splash Zone' warning signs for the front row, so that's fine."
"Then she wishes to perform The Juggling Jellybean Jamboree."
Starlight's lower lip jutted out as she gave a nod of her head. "That one got a really big applause last time."
"And then The Galloping Goblet Gambit!"
"Yeah, that's another..." Starlight paused as she wrote the trick down. "Very... popular one..."
"For her penultimate trick, Trixie feels that the Terrific Tambourine Tango will stir the crowd up in preparation for the grand finale!"
This time, Starlight didn't reply. As she wrote the name of the trick, she'd already spotted the pattern. 'The Banana Split Spectacle', according to her notes, was Trixie's fifth most well-recieved trick. It was followed by 'The Juggling Jellybean Jamboree' in fourth, 'The Galloping Goblet Gambit' in third, and 'The Terrific Tambourine Tango' in second. With a sigh of resignation and one ear falling limp again, she wrote down 'The Transmogrifying Transported Mare' to wrap up the list.
"And then," Trixie said, her voice low and dripping with gravitas. She was apparently too caught up in her own showmareship to notice that Starlight had written down one more trick than had been dictated to her. "To wrap up her stellar performance, The Great and Powerful Trixie will stun the crowd with her flawless execution of..." She paused for effect. "The Transmogrifying. Transported. Mare!"
"Wonderful!" Starlight declared, immediately rolling up the scroll and turning to walk down the steps leading off-stage. "I'm gonna give this to the stallions in the lighting booth, then we can start our run-through."
Trixie, caught off-guard by the lack of reaction to her dramatic flair, blinked twice. "R...r... run-through?"
"Yep, run-through," came Starlight's reply, echoing into the darkness away from the stage as she proceeded up the aisle. "We've had enough calamities in the last few weeks to bump up the premium of our Liability Insurance, and I'm not prepared to kiss goodbye to any more of our profit margin. No, we're gonna go over this a few times, Trixie. I'll stand in for any tricks where you might need an audience member to volunteer."
Any objections that Trixie could muster fell on deaf ears. A normal day of dealing with rowdy adolescents often gave Starlight very little in the ways of patience to tomfoolery. Today, however, had been particularly bad.
The inciting incident had taken place in the school cafeteria, where the sometimes-questionable food offerings to the students had been made a lot worse by a young unicorn. She had been performing thaumatic exercises from her codex textbook. By mistake, she had sent an aggressively warped mashup of an animation spell and a revivification spell in the direction of a catering sized tub of lasagne.
As a result, Starlight was then required to meet up with an ethics committee to discuss what did or did not constitute a form of sentient life. While she was doing this, Princess Twilight and the rest of the faculty had been tasked with evacuating and locking down the school premises, to prevent the beast from escaping and causing any harm to local residents. The whole building was going to stink of marinara for weeks.
It took some time to get set up, but when the lighting team had all arrived and been referred to Starlight's list, the rehearsal began. They were on the ball as always. When Trixie summoned a crash mat onto the stage for just a fraction of a second, the strobe effects made it imperceptible for the brief instant where it needed to cushion her fall. As sock puppets danced around in a hypnotic circle, the lights cast huge shadows on the rear curtains, exaggerating their size in a suitably dramatic manner. And when supposedly poisoned (but actually just watered down) grails of wine appeared on stage, the barely perceptible shift of hue from orange to red perfectly encapsulated the tension of the moment.
"And for her final trick!" Trixie declared to mostly empty room. "The Great and Powerful Trixie requires a volunteer!"
In the front row, Starlight sat on a sheet of banana-splattered plastic. She'd set them out herself, covering any seat within the blast radius of The Banana Split Spectacle. Looking around at all the empty seats, feigning playful disinterest, Starlight counted to three in her head. Then she shrugged in resignation, and her hoof rose.
"You there, front and centre!" Trixie called out, pointing to Starlight. "Please join Trixie upon her stage. Everypony, give her a round of applause."
To both of their surprise, slow clapping echoed through the room from the direction of the lighting booth. One of the stallions even had the cheek to wolf whistle when Starlight rose to her hooves. As she walked towards the stage steps, she gathered up a large ball of banana pulp from the plastic sheets and held it up in her magic. Then, without looking back, she sent it hurling into the darkness in the direction of the lighting booth. A loud splat, a yelp of surprise, and several stallions erupting in laughter seemed to suggest her projectile had found its mark.
"Welcome, welcome, friend of the mystic arts," Trixie said, bowing low and holding her hat to her chest. "Please, what name do you wish for The Great and Powerful Trixie to refer to you by?"
"Fedora Neckbeard," Starlight deadpanned.
Trixie gave a saccharine smile as she returned her hat to her head. "We'll just call you Dora, shall we? Well Dora, today we will be performing a miraculous trick. You see, The Great and Powerful Trixie has spent much time in studies of sorcery and witchcraft. In her time, she has perfected the secret to splitting one's soul."
She paused for the audience to 'ooooh'. The empty chairs made no such noise.
"But the splitting of a soul requires that the fragmented soul be converted into a new vessel. And tonight, Trixie will create a new vessel just for you, Dora. Half of your essence, and your equine body along with it, will be transported into..." She ignited her horn, and a large wardrobe burst into existence on the stage behind them. "This closet! The other half, will remain where you stand. But in a new form! For while half of your essence will be transported into the closet with your body, the other half will become... a little fluffy white bunny! Now how does that sound?"
"Stupendous."
"Most excellent! Now please, for our audience, go have a peek inside that closet. Ensure that it is definitely empty."
Trixie took a step to the side, making sure everypony in the non-existent audience could clearly see the wardrobe. Making a dramatic show of doing so, Starlight approached it and flung both doors open. She walked a full circle around it, before falling to her haunches and gesturing to it with both front hooves in a 'ta-daaa' motion.
"What do you think, Dora?"
"I think that of all the closets I've ever seen in my life, this is definitely one of them."
"Yes, well..." Trixie paused, as Starlight's nonsensical words took a moment to register in her head. "Ahem, anyway. Please close the doors, and then stand centre stage to prepare for the fragmentation of your soul!"
Starlight obliged. With the stage set, she stood in place in the beam of spotlight, and waited.
"Don't worry everypony," Trixie assured the room. "This is perfectly safe."
She ignited her horn, and fired a tendril of magic at Starlight. With a huge puff of smoke that exploded outwards like a mushroom-shaped cloud, the lighting team followed their cue and illuminated the whole stage in a rainbow of different lights. The smoke cloud shot upwards, twirling and twisting as it formed into a miniature tornado, before sucking itself back down onto the floor of the stage as it receded into... a frog?
"Errr..." Trixie's ears folded downwards in shock. She ran over to look down at the small green amphibian that occupied the space where a little bunny should have been standing. "That's... that's not supposed to happen. You're supposed to be a bunny. Dora, are you okay?"
'Ribbit.'
It was all just smoke and mirrors. The actual power of the trick operated in three ways. Firstly, a simple pair of teleportation spells. One to move the volunteer into the wardrobe, and another to bring Trixie's pet bunny Merlinium into place on the stage. Secondly, the smokevortex spell, just for dramatic effect. And finally, a minor brain fog spell that made the transported volunteer momentarily vulnerable to suggestion. A simple question of 'so how does it feel partly occupying the body of a bunny' was enough to convince them they actually were.
Wrapping up the trick was very straightforward too. Direct the volunteer to go pick up the bunny. 'A fragmented soul will naturally realign' she'd assure them. With Merlinium held aloft in the volunteers hooves, Trixie would cast a much less dramatic smoke spell. She would combine it with one last teleportation spell to return the bunny to his hutch, and he would be gone. The volunteer would return to their seat, gobsmacked about how they had spent time as a bunny, and the audience would respond with vigorous applause. End of show, done and dusted, Trixie could bask in fan adoration while Starlight totted up the total profits from the ticket sales.
So where had the frog come from?
Trixie regained her composure, grinning to the empty seats. "Well, it's not exactly the fluffy bunny she promised, but The Great and Powerful Trixie has successfully channelled half of Dora's essence into the body of a tiny little frog! And now, let's go check and see how the other half is faring, shall we?"
She made her way over to the wardrobe, gave a dramatic flourish of her cloak, and threw the doors open. Trixie gasped, her irises shrinking to tiny pinpricks as her ears drooped flat. The wardrobe was empty.
"That... that's... oh sweet Celestia, it can't be..." she gasped. "STARLIGHT?!" she shouted out, turning around, desperately hoping for her to appear from somewhere off stage. "STARLIGHT?! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Then her eyes fell upon the frog. It hadn't moved from its spot. Thoughts felt sluggish in Trixie's mind as adrenaline began to flood her chest. She was certain that she'd cast the correct series of spells. But what if... what if she'd miscalculated the equation as she'd cast the magic? Thaumaturgy was a tricky thing, even when only casting simple spells in the name of showmareship. One incorrect figure, or one misplacement as she'd set down her leylines, and the consequences could be drastic. It had been so long since she'd slipped up, but if it was possible to transport a pony, transforming them wasn't a wildly inconceivable notion. Realisation settled upon her as a sickening weight dropped into her stomach.
"Starlight!" she cried, running over and hunching down over the frog. "Oh my Celestia, what has The Great and Powerful Trixie done to you?! Please, oh Luna above, speak to Trixie, Starlight! Somepony get help!"
From the lighting rig above, the distant sounds of hooves scrambling around echoed through the theatre.
"Starlight?!"
'Ribbit.'
"Oh, Starlight... Trixie must have made a rare error in calculations when casting her spell. She did not intend upon such awful consequences, and she does not know how she did it. But she will do what it takes to turn you back, she swears it! It matters not how long it takes, she will not rest until you are returned safely to your original form."
'Ribbit.'
"Oh... you're right," Trixie moaned, her eyes brimming with tears. "The Great and Powerful Trixie has made the most dreadful mistake and she will see to it that you are compensated in full. You may take all of Trixie's share of our profits from the last few weeks, just please don't be too mad at her!"
'Ribbit.'
"Yes it's true!" Trixie wailed. "You are crucial to the smooth running of Trixie's performances and she hasn't shown you sufficient gratitude. This entire run of shows has been successful beyond Trixie's wildest dreams, and she has recieved several offers to do theatrical runs in a great many other towns! A result neither of us could possibly have expected, and Trixie owes it all to you, Starlight!"
"Trixie?"
"Yes, Trixie should have told you sooner! She was getting so caught up in the success of this run of shows, that she completely failed to consider that you ought to be kept in the loop for further performances in the future. But Trixie will make it up to you, Starlight. She wishes for you to be the manager for a full tour of every town that has approached Trixie to request a show, and she will give you twenty... no, thirty percent of Trixie's own income from those shows!"
"Trixie."
"Fifty? Trixie can go higher if need be."
"Trixie!"
Screaming when a hoof landed on her back, Trixie turned on the spot as an uncontrolled burst of magic shot out of her horn like a missile. The pink bolt ricocheted out into the dark rows of seating, after its intended target deflected it with ease. Trixie gasped as she found herself looking into the irritated-looking blue eyes of Starlight Glimmer.
"Starlight?!" Trixie gasped. "But... you... how..."
"What was that about extra show dates?"
Trixie's eyebrow twitched. "Err... you... wha?"
"You completely blew that spell, by the way," Starlight explained, her face stoic. "I ended up in the mare's bathroom, scared the bejeebus out of one of the ushers who was using the stall you sent me into, and then when I made my way back here through the back of house, I could see that Merlinium was still in his hutch. Did you actually think you'd turned me into a frog?"
"Umm... err... maybe?"
"Oh please," Starlight replied with a scoff. "If you'd been able to summon that much power, you would have blown the roof off this place. Still, better we mess that up like this now, rather than with some poor unsuspecting audience member later tonight, huh?"
"Yes... Trixie supposes so. And she is glad that she didn't turn you into a frog. But she is still unsure about where it came from."
"Fluttershy's nature reserve."
Trixie blinked. "H...how in Equestria do you know that?"
"It's wearing a tag on its leg, genius. I can see it from here."
Looking down at the frog, Trixie saw what she had been too wrapped up in panic to notice. There, a tiny little thing attached to its back-right leg, the frog had a bright orange tag with a incomprehensibly small string of numbers written on it.
"But... but the reserve is miles away!"
"My guess is you miscalculated the ki balance for the brain fog, so the teleportation spell overcompensated the arcana matrix and reached out to a further target to prevent you from imploding your own horn with excessively powered leylines."
"Huh?"
"Not enough of Column A, which nearly broke Column B."
Trixie's cheeks flushed. "That... umm... Trixie accepts that could be a possible answer to the spell going wrong."
"So," Starlight continued. "Tour manager, eh? Fifty percent of the profits."
A cold chill shot up Trixie's spine. "Err... about that... well you see, Trixie was under a great deal of emotional stress when she said that, and so she might have been speaking a little... hastily? But she is willing to negotiate a fair deal with you, just as soon as..."
*POOF*
In an explosion of purple magic, Twilight Sparkle materialised onto the stage, wings held aloft and eyes wide in panic.
"Where's Starlight?" she demanded of Trixie, standing tall and getting right in her face. "What have you done to her? How did you turn her into a..."
Twilight trailed off as, in her peripheral vision, she spotted Starlight. A cheesy grin was plastered onto her face, like she was truly enjoying the (there was only one word for it) spectacle unfolding before her. Trixie laying her cards out for all Equestria to see, compromising her position of leverage in the process. Then Twilight dropping everything to come and make sure Starlight was okay. It was nice to be the centre of attention again, for a change.
"Starlight, you're alright?"
"Yep, just a little snafoo on Trixie's part. But it's all good. You got here pretty fast!"
"One of the lighting team here is a pegasus. He flew straight to my castle to inform me of what had transpired here, so I made haste. But it would appear that you have a non-problem on your hooves here?"
Starlight waved a dismissive hoof. "Again, it's all good. Though I could really use a drink."
"Well as it so happens... I imagined that once I undid whatever damage Trixie had done to you, you might be in need of this," Twilight explained, holding up a small metal flask in her magic.
No hesitation. Starlight snatched it out of the air and took one large gulp from it. She gasped in relief as the warm liquid set itself to work.
Trixie sniffed. "Princess Twilight... why do you stink of tomato sauce?"
